Today in history

On this date:

In 1791, the U.S. Bill of Rights went into effect, following ratification by Virginia.

In 1890, Chief Sitting Bull, whose Sioux forces had wiped out Gen. George Custer and his army at the “Battle of Little Big Horn” in Montana in 1876, died in North Dakota after being shot by police trying to arrest him. He was born in 1831 along the Grand River in South Dakota.

In 1891, Honore Mercier was dismissed as premier of Quebec by the lieutenant governor over a scandal involving campaign funds.

In 1913, Toronto’s newest vaudeville house, the 2,200-seat Loew’s Yonge St. Theatre (now the Elgin), opened. Owner Marcus Loewe brought in Irving Berlin to sing some of his favourites to a standing-room only crowd. Two months later, the 1,500-seat Winter Garden was opened above Loew’s, creating the only double-decker theatre complex in Canada.

In 1917, Germany and Russia signed an armistice during the First World War.

In 1922, the British Broadcasting Corp. was established.

In 1939, “Gone With the Wind,” producer David O. Selznick’s movie version of the Margaret Mitchell novel starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, had its world premiere in Atlanta.

In 1942, Parliament approved the conscription of married men during the Second World War.

In 1944, during the Second World War, American forces invaded Mindoro Island in the Philippines.